Now there’s a title with potential.

My, Barbara Cameron is quite the chatty one.  She appears out of nowhere yammering to her husband Paul about a local ghost story.  Then she moves on to the titular killer tree.  Supposedly there is a treasure buried under it.  But if anyone comes looking for the treasure, they die.  Paul has no interest in her folk tales.  He and Clyde Bishop need to run some tests in the desert.  The trio zoom away in the jeep with Barbara yapping away.

Hey, wait a minute.  I’m getting a Sun Gold vibe here (the SFT episode, not the Medical Marijuana).  The drive-away and fade with her still talking was a deliberate, well-constructed gag.  I can spot one a mile away; usually a mile away from here.  I see Sun Gold’s director Eddie Davis also directed this episode. According to the book whose title is too long to type here, but is now shorter than if I had just gone ahead and typed it, both episodes were filmed concurrently to make use of the desert location and port-a-potty.  

While running their tests, they see an old man collapse from heat prostration. ^[2] He says his partner Frank is dead and a killer tree did it!  He tells the same story after he is rehydrated and on his feet, but from about 5 feet higher.  Barbara wants to know where the tree is, but Paul says they have to go finish their testing.  

Paul gives in when she says they shouldn’t leave the old guy stranded in the desert.  They don’t seem to care much about leaving his mule, though.  So he (not the mule) takes the fourth seat in the jeep, although strangely three of the seats are in the front, and directs them to the tree.  

They find it and Barbara takes some pictures.  She is startled when she sees a skeleton near the base of the tree.  She calls her husband and Clyde over to see the skeleton. The old man even wanders over.  Have a f***ing picnic, why don’t ya!  They know this is the killer tree, right?

They all walk away, but in a bizarre edit, Paul is suddenly unconscious on the ground.   Again, Barbara calls Clyde and the geezer over into the circle of death.  They are able to drag Paul to safety.  

However, once Paul is back on his feet, they again go into the perimeter of doom.  They observe that insects that fly seem to be ok, but insects that crawl on the ground are subject to the killer tree.  They determine it is Carbon Dioxide, rising from a petroleum reserve below the tree. 

It goes on with the old guy staking a claim, then being killed by the tree.  Our heroes bring in fancy equipment and discover that the tree sits on top of an active volcano, so I guess they were wrong about the oil.  They lower cameras into the ground on a “coaxial cable” and are able to see magma and Cinemax.  They hail this as a breakthrough in the study of seismology and simulated sex that will save thousands of lives.  ^[2]

The episode ended up being a let down, if such a thing is possible with SFT.  It started well and had a good pedigree.  However, it did not warm my heart like Sun Gold (the Medical Marijuana, not the SFT episode). There was a ‘splosion, but not the sense of mystery or adventure. The lead actress was another spunky, short-haired blonde but . . . let me check — yeah, she’s dead . . . a lesser knock-off of her Sun Gold counterpart.  Once the mystery is solved, there is really no point in continuing, but it does for another 8 minutes. 

You know, once you’ve opened the Ark — just shove it in a warehouse. 

Once you have the Sankara Stone — just put it back in the igneous trophy case. 

Once you find the Holy Grail — just ride off into the sunset. 

Once you return the Crystal Skull to the improbably narrow shoulders of an alien — just flee from the temple losing your greedy idiot turncoat pal who was the worst character in the series and watch a terrible CGI rendering of a UFO that should never been part of this movie and go to a wedding of a couple who haven’t seen each other in 20 years and where the bride was probably abused as a child by the groom and suffer through the nauseating threat that Shia LeBeouf is going to be the new Indiana Jones. ^[3]

Notes:

• [1]  Hey, it’s TVs Fred Ziffel, from Green Acres!
• One of the gang says the Carbon Dioxide is “penetrating a strata of rock.”  C’mon, you’re a scientist!  Fred Ziffel would have known strata is plural!
• [2]  Sadly, Skinemax seems to no longer be a thing.
• [3]  Going on a 10 year old memory, so it might have been very, very diff worse.
• Note to self:  Register Sun Gold as name for new Medical Marijuana brand.  Step 2: Partner with Rold Gold.